Passenger conveyors such as escalators and moving walkways have been provided with balustrades made from glass panels for some time. The glass balustrades are considered to provide an elegant and aesthetically pleasing appearance, and are architecturally desirable. The use of glass balustrades has led to various systems for illuminating the balustrades, and areas around the balustrades. Examples of such illuminating systems are found in various patent publications. German Auslegeschrift No. 1,274,286 discloses an escalator with a glass balustrade which is illuminated from the area beneath the supporting structure for the balustrade panels. A neon light source is mounted directly below the glass balustrade panels between the latter and the return path of travel of the handrail. U.S. Pat. No. 4,798,274 granted Jan. 17, 1989 to C. Saito discloses an assembly for illuminating the landing area of an escalator in a manner which indicates the direction of travel of the escalator. U.S. Pat. No. 4,871,056 granted Oct. 3, 1989 to C. Saito discloses a system of illuminating the area of an escalator balustrade located directly beneath the handrail. U.S. Pat. No. 5,067,062 granted Nov. 19, 1991 to G. Riilke discloses a passenger conveyor balustrade illumination system which utilizes light sources, such as neon lights, located below the conveyor inner conveyor step skirts and outer decks which combine with lenses in the skirts and decks to project a light curtain upwardly on each side of the balustrade. The projected light curtain is then reflected downwardly toward the skirts and decks by what are called "leg members" which contain "convex mirror-like curvatures". Essentially, these are mirrors which reflect light downwardly to illuminate both sides of each of the balustrades.
From the foregoing, it will be appreciated that passenger conveyors have had their balustrades illuminated for purposes of added safety; aesthetic enhancement; conveying information; and the like.